The Moto E (2015) Review
by Brandon Chester on April 21, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- Moto E (2015)
WiFi
When building devices to meet a low price, WiFi always seems to be one of the first things on the chopping block. The assumption is most likely that the people in the market for inexpensive smartphones don't require speeds beyond what is offered by 802.11n. What disappoints me is when 5GHz support is also omitted, which leaves the device operating on the increasing crowded 2.4GHz band.
The Moto E's results are in line with other 2.4GHz 802.11n devices. With an absolute max theoretical speed of 72Mbps, 58.1Mbps over UDP is actually a pretty good result. That being said, the improved speed and reduced interference of 5GHz networks would still be appreciated. At $149 cuts have to be made somewhere though, and I would prefer that they be made to WiFi rather than the display or build quality.
GNSS
Like most devices which use Qualcomm's Gobi modems, the Moto E uses Qualcomm's GNSS solution. In Airplane mode with no assistance information the Moto E was able to achieve a lock in 32 seconds, with it taking another few seconds to bring the accuracy to within 10 feet. Both these times will vary greatly depending on the surrounding environment and weather conditions. With assistance info locks take only a matter of seconds.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
90 Comments
View All Comments
RealTheXev - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
I picked one up for my mother, only $69 at Walmart (Verizon LTE prepay). The only REAL downside is you cannot unlock the bootloader using Moto's official tool (and that's why my mother got the phone lol).BMNify - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Xiaomi Redmi 2, Lenovo A6000 Plus and Micromax Canvas Spark are three better options than Moto E, Lenovo is already widespread in many countries and Xiaomi already caters to the largest smartphones markets that is China, India, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. In 2015, Xiaomi will enter Russia and Brazil which is Hugo Barra's home market.BMNify - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
I have considered the pricing from Flipkart for the above phones but the pricing is nearly the same for these in all the countries in which they are sold officially by the manufacturers.hans_ober - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Yeah, but how's the software support? Heard that Xiaomi/Lenovo have almost non-existent service centers in India.BMNify - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Software updates: Xiaomi has excellent software support, they provide software updates and even small bug fixes in between for all their phones, even the low end $100 phones. Infact their Developer ROM is updated every week. Apart from that Xiaomi is the only company who listens and replies to complaints via facebook, twitter, G+ etc. Xiaomi Devs and even the head Hugo Barra listen and reply to comments, no company is such consumer focused and that is the reason why they have millions of fans with Zero Dollar marketing budget.Service centres: Xiaomi has more service centres than Motorola in India, Xiaomi has exclusive service centres too along with tie-up with 3rd parties/outsourced whereas Motorola relies only on outsourced service centres. Lenovo and Motorola are neck and neck with both sharing the same service centres in most places.
Microsoft/nokia Lumia, Samsung and LG have better service than the above brands but that is expected.
loimlo - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
That said, Redmi and Xiaomi series are different with regard to SW update mechanisms. Redmi doesn't get update on a weekly basis. It's not that I need weekly update for my Redmi, but I'd like to clarify the things.Btw, I've been using Redmi for past 15 months. It's a solid phone given its pricing of USD 130.
Tyron - Saturday, March 12, 2016 - link
Lol redmi 2 or the Lenovo A6000 never got even Android 5.1 !!While Moto E2, 5.0-5.1-5.1.1-6.0
Motorola rocks (and lenovo sucks)
Thermogenic - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
The Microsoft Lumia 640(XL) looks to be a very solid competitor to the Moto E.der - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
50th comment woooStanand - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Also, the Verizon-locked Moto E seems to be only usable with Verizon's monthly prepaid smartphone plans that start at $45 per month. That's not a horrible deal for those that want unlimited talk/text and a little data, but many budget buyers (like me) want pay-as-you-go and the option to use an MVNO (like Page Plus).